The use of hard cash as a percentage of total global payments is steadily declining but the key driver of its supply and demand is the consumer’s propensity to adopt alternatives such as digital transactions. The use of legal tender such as coins and notes has been declining in mature first world economies since the …
Get the best out of your technology team with these effective principles Everything depends on meaningful conversations throughout the period of evaluation (such 1:1s are part of effective team communication, learn more here). Start on a good note when you agree a performance contract up front; it will be far more significant to the person being evaluated. Active, on the …
Managing IT performance; more practice, less theory Read More »
T-40, 39, 38 isn’t just for NASA, use it on your projects and get to 3, 2, 1… success! I can still remember the go-live date: 17th June 2006. The project was a large ERP implementation across HR, Finance, Procurement and Property, our team was 100+ business and IT people delivering to 3000 users spread across numerous …
Everyone leaves at some point. How do you lead through the change? Rule #1: Never try and hold on to good people who have simply decided to make a career change within the company. They will feel restricted, demotivated and eventually leave anyway. Get over your feelings, look them in the eye and genuinely wish …
…begins with one step,” and you must lead teams so they are willing to take it. This famous Chinese proverb (Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu) is a powerful antidote to the analysis paralysis mindset that strangles many large projects. Actually doing something rather than meeting and talking about it often seems like a novel idea …
Sometimes an ambitious goal requires you to cut off your own escape routes. During the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519, the naval commander had his men destroy their boats when they landed on the enemy beach. This war tactic has been used many times but it meant the soldiers had to conquer the land …
Regularly demonstrate working software to customers; it builds engagement and increases trust. Nothing beats a good test drive before buying a new car; it’s difficult to get excited about the leather seats or the smooth gear change by reading the manual. Likewise software needs a tactile experience by the customer who is paying for it; …
You can apply most Agile principles selectively on projects. Forest Gump made the line famous and it is a useful way of referring to the toolbox approach that many people take with Agile. If you would like to improve daily collaboration then hold stand-ups and scrums, if you want better quality code try pair programming; …
Don’t confuse product quality with execution excellence. Unless you are talking about Gordon Ramsay, most chefs perform a very different job from the person who actually runs the restaurant. There are good reasons for this and yet in business and even with personal projects we often let the pursuit of quality trump actual progress. Quality …
Agile is about forward thinking not last minute risk management. “We’ll have to push this release out because the monthly changes on the mainframe only go live the following week.” This is common where systems integrate to back-end transactional platforms that follow a stricter timetable for implementing changes. The temptation is to delay but either …
